Not so happy Father’s Day

AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Ricardo Ali and I real miss my father on Father’s Day.

My nickname is Nosey. Because my nose big. And that stick now. But hopefully it will go.

But now that I put it in the newspapers, it might last even longer.

I’m from Cunupia, from one of them area where everybody know everybody, from a real big family, counting my cousins and uncle, in the air-conditioning trade.

But my family at home is just five of us.

My dad passed away when I was about six. So is just my brother, two sisters, me and my mother.

I’m 16 now. I’ll be 17 in November.

I went Cunupia Government Primary. And then I went ASJA Boys’ College. And then I leave out ASJA because of some family problems and I jump into the a/c thing.

I accustomed, since primary school, to go with my cousins on job sites and thing. And I end up liking it. So when that family problem come up, I decide to jump out school.

It was before my daddy die that I went to earn, to help out my mother and sister and them.

My father was a Muslim and my mother is a Hindu.

I respect (Hinduism & Islam) as much as I could. But I’m not really a believer in either.

I’m a Scorpio but I don’t really believe in horoscope. But now and then, if I feel the vibes, I might take up a little bit of it, check the energy.

I get in a bad habit of not eating. Normally, I will eat once for the day. Sometime, when we come home 2-3 o’clock in the morning, we will buy food.

And, in the morning, when we wake up, everybody else does eat but not me.

I normally don’t eat, like at lunchtime and thing.

But I want to start back the eating.

I trying a thing with a girl. She start DM-ing me on Instagram. Making all kind of small talk. “Hey, what you doing?” Lunchtime, “Hey, what you eat?”

Now she come into this love thing, saying I too sweet for she, so I go with the flow and kinda stick with she now. But I wouldn’t say her name.

I’m wearing glasses about a year now.

Back in primary school, I used to sit down right up in front the class so I could read the board. And do my work correct.

It’s pretty good to see everything clear now. Like I could see how pretty my girl is now. But I still wouldn’t say her name.

I remember exactly what happened when my dad passed but I’s try to keep out of that, so I wouldn’t get in a mood. I rather talk about air-conditioning.

I’m the last child and that kind of thing always hits the last child the hardest.

You could say is about ten years now. But the feeling of loss doesn’t stop. Is just come back. Like a circle. No matter how cool you think it is, is just come back, somehow, and lash you again.

Last year, my mummy and them had gone out and I was home alone and I end up liming by my girlfriend for Father’s Day.

Everything went okay until the same talk come up and they ask me if I missing my dad and thing.

I was like, “Wait nuh, what trouble is this?” Then I was like, “Yeah, everything okay.”

But it so end up, as I start to talk about him, the good times we had and all kind of thing, I just had a set of feelings and I end up crying. It was very embarrassing.

My mummy ask me, when I reach back home, "Well, how you spend Father’s Day?” I tell she what went on and I end up thinking about him again and study him more and I start to miss him more. And I start to cry again.

It was like, the more I cry, the more I miss him, and the more my feelings just start to raise. I was, like, “I need to cool down little bit!”

And the more I try to cool down, the more I keep on thinking about him until I just get a bad headache.

My daddy took me to a beach one time and we took out a picture of me standing up next to him.

I have the picture on my phone. Sometimes, I’s just be home, sit down in my bed, watching my phone and watching the picture and something will just click in my head and I will just start to miss him and start real crying. Cry like (a baby)! It really touch my heart, seeing him one last time in the picture.

My mummy tell me, “Don’t worry, nah, son, everything will be okay. All o’ we do have that, we do remember him in we mind. Things (will) come good and good and good.”

But up to today, it really do hurt.

It seems like I’s the smallest one and I’s miss him the most.

Growing up, I used to take his side in everything.

Hopefully, for this year’s Father Day, I will put up a picture of him. Like I’s do when is his birthday and thing. And tell him how much I miss him and how, really and truly, I feeling kinda sad and depressed.

Not ignorant, not no vexed, just sad.

I think about my father and real miss him a lot. Up to yesterday, (in fact) up to every day, I’s be thinking about him.

But what you go do again? That’s life. And wherever life takes you, you have to go.

Sometimes, like when I scrolling through Facebook, I will take a bypass, see what going on in the country.

I’ve read newspapers – the important stuff. See what movie going on, what little kinda anime storyline it have, not online, in the real hard copy newspaper.

BC Pires get real confuse and ask me, “What anime it have in the papers?” I tell him is the comic strips I mean.

When I scrolling through Newsday, is only cartoons I looking for.

To be honest, some Trinis don’t have respect. Some of them don't take road safety serious. And it have real crimes and all kind of thing.

A Trini is somebody who should take more responsibility for all them things.

TT is a loving place.

But it getting to a point where things will start to go bad.

But I believe everything will come back to high sky and visitors will come back. Everything will get better, the roads and everything.

Hopefully.

Read the full version of this feature on Saturday at www.BCPires.com